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Rebel Transmissions: Out Of Darkness

Welcome world-wide-web travelers, to another fantastic Rebel Transmission! And that would be for the fantastic episode that is Out Of Darkness! Join me as we take a closer look into the crazy adventures of the Ghost crew’s awesome girls, and have plenty of fun and learn more about the SW universe along the way 🙂NOTE: Contains spoilers from Episode IV, TCW episodes Point Of No Return, The Lawless, and Rebels episodes Spark Of Rebellion, Droids In Distress, Breaking Ranks, and Out Of Darkness.

Soooo it was just another ordinary day aboard the Phantom as they find themselves on the run from yet another TIE fighter. OK so maybe not ordinary in our books, but for them? It’s starting to become the usual. Hera’s at the controls with her young comrades, Ezra and Sabine, in the backseat. And as you might’ve figured, the kids are more-or-less questioning what her plan is and if they even have a plan at all. But whatevs Hera’s got it all under control and points the gun turret in the direction of the TIE. Problemo solved! So now that Ezra has nothing to panic over, he does casually ask Hera if he could ever sit in the Phantom‘s driver’s seat. Captain Syndulla’s all “You driving my ship? Psh yeah right.”, completely not buying the fact that he thinks he’s ready (and there’s probably some license you need to drive, I’d assume, not that that’s ever stopped Ezra from driving other things, of course…). Oh and then along come three more TIEs, and young Bridger’s back to freakout mode. Yeah I don’t think he’s ready yet. So anyway, they’re back on the run once more, and Sabine decides to ask exactly where they got their intel to begin with. Hera doesn’t seem to be interested in telling her as such. While Ezra, knowing that Jedi need to keep their mind on the here-and-now, again makes it clear he’d rather focus on not dying than why they’re in this sticky situation to start with. The Phantom does some weaving between these Lothal mounds to lead the fighters into a too-tight space to blow ’em up. Though not without scraping some of the ship’s paint off first… and messing up the steering mechanism. Sabine’s still wanting to know a bit more dirt, and Hera’s still keeping it classified, and the Mando’s far from happy about it. But with some carefully-aimed shooting, Hera hits one of the mounds, making it foggy enough that TIE pilot #1 couldn’t see TIE #2 right in front of him. And our heroes have made it out scot-free… except perhaps for all that damage to the ship. And the leaking fuel, don’t forget that it’ll be important later.
By the time our heroes return to the Ghost, it looks like things are back to normal. And I’m sorry but I just ate up that Kanan-Hera banter in this scene. I don’t know all their story, but they clearly have something going on between them. Guhhhh it’s so so cute X3 X3 And now it looks like Zeb and Ezra are stuck on ship-repair-duty. Funnn… And Chopper’ll be helping too. More funnn…! Yup it’s quite clear that Captain Syndulla wears the pilot’s coveralls in the family 🙂 But it’s clear from Sabine’s rather disheartened expression that she’s still not satisfied with her answer.
In the cockpit, Kanan and Hera discuss what went down out on her mission (And he brought her coffee! Aww! Well, it might not be coffee but if I had their job I’d go through a lot of it). And then in walks Miss Wren, making it clear she’s interested in some real answers right now. Kanan reassures her that Hera knows what she’s doing and he trusts her with where she gets their info. Sabine is not impressed, because she’s spent a lot of her life not being told the truth. As we learn, she was stuck in a Mandalorian Imperial Academy before she joined up with the Ghost crew, and of course Imperials very rarely are truthful. It’s quite interesting to learn more on her backstory. I’d assumed that whole thing about her being a level five student at the Imperial Academy was a cover, not that I ever doubted her intelligence, with her immense protocol-droid-esque knowledge of languages, but I couldn’t imagine why she would’ve been involved with the Empire to begin with. But as we’ve learned from Breaking Ranks, not everyone there wants to be there. I still have so many questions… how is it Sabine actually met the crew? The Empire had something to do with the loss of her family, what happened there? Or do I even want to know? And interesting thought: assuming the Republic did occupy Mandalore after the Death-Watch-Darth-Maul-based insanity in TCW Season 5, does that mean when the Republic fell, Mandalore was pretty much Empire-owned from the get-go? Yikes. You have to wonder, man… Anyway, with no useful information from Kanan, Sabine puts her foot down and tells Hera she’s coming with on her meeting with their informant. Hera drops a bit of sarc in her direction, but doesn’t comment on it otherwise. And so today’s adventure begins…
Meanwhile, Zeb and Ezra were working on getting the Phantom back in working order. It went well, all things considered. I mean, aside from Chopper deciding to cleanse the life support systems while Ezra was working on them, it went well. Yup you don’t need a protocol droid to translate the fact that Chopper was laughing at his glorious prank. It took Ezra about three seconds before he jumped on the C1 and started beating him with a wrench. And then Chopper might’ve run off and consequently run over Zeb’s foot. So off the boys went on their kerfuffle with Chopper… not exactly realizing that they might’ve forgotten to fix one thing… something… fairly important. Their little chase went on right up until the ran into Hera (thankfully not literally), and they had to go and make it clear they finished their work… right up until Chopper did it again and started doing a little zapping of the boys. I love that Zeb uses the term “dismantlate” XD So now would be the time for the girls to head on out. Though yeah that thing the guys forgot may come back to bite them later. And of course you’ve seen this episode so yeah it kinda will.
As they’re flying in, Sabine continues in her attempts to dig info out of Hera, but to no avail. And then she has an opportunity when the informant comes on the line. She has a little fun adding a few comments of her own injected into the conversation, and Hera has to apologize and explain that Specter 5 had to come along on this one. OK so another thought, knowing what we know now, do you think any of the craziness to happen was because of Fulcrum? Perhaps he was suspicious of anyone else joining and somehow got a bunch of those monsters to join the party instead? Or was it all an honest mistake? Just wondering.
By the time the two reach the base on this particular planet, things start to go out of balance. Informant Fulcrum’s not anywhere to be seen. And though the girls don’t know it yet, the Phantom‘s kinda leaking fuel. And it’s definitely interesting as we see Hera grab a particular crate before Sabine could get to it. Something about the marking on it seems to denote something that Hera doesn’t want Sabine to see. Though there’s nothing inherently Mandalorian about it to me, or maybe it’s something totally different! And what’s impressive is that we don’t get any answers in this episode regarding it (or really most of the situation overall), that we’ll have to find out more another episode another day, maybe even another season. Oh yeah, and to add to the whole things-falling-out-balance thing, SOMETHING WITH CREEPY YELLOW EYES IS WATCHING THEM FROM AFAR IN THE PORT. O.O
As the girls were moving the crates back to the ship, Sabine tries once again to explain why she needs to know what they know, and a lot of that, as she explains, is rooted in her need to trust and be trusted in this whole crazy game of “Rebel-ing”. Hera tries to reassure her that she does trust Sabine, and she already knows everything she needs to know right now, particularly if anything was to happen involving Imperial capture. And that bit hurts Sabine, as she strongly believes she would never spill anything to them. Hera then goes and tries to help her understand what was meant by that, just with an understanding that the Empire knows how to get people to talk (they did sorta get Leia to spill, after all, even though what she said wasn’t true). But Sabine continues to explain herself that she spent so long doing whatever the Empire wanted and blindly following them wherever that she is absolutely done with secrecy, and she’s still having some doubts about what they’re doing, and if it’s even making any difference. My heart really goes out to her… she comes off so cool and confident most of the time that it’s hard to imagine her being in that sort of situation, or really having these frustrations and doubts in the first place. But it still rings true — everyone’s fighting a battle we know nothing about. Aw girl I understand a lot of how you feel! But Hera finally ends the conversation by telling her that Sabine needs to have faith that there is something bigger here going on than she can imagine, and to have faith and trust in her and Kanan, who are at the front of all of this, guiding this growing rebellion where it needs to go. Wow man, so deep. And isn’t that something interesting about life? We always want answers in life, but none of us have all the answers, or will get all the answers. We just have to trust that indeed there is a bigger plan involved, and we don’t need all the answers. And wow I just got deep there. Uh anyway wow I love this hinting here… what’s Hera got up her sleeve longterm? I don’t know, but all I can say is that I am very very excited to see all of this unfold! Sabine doesn’t really have much to add to all of that. And then Hera took notice of the fact that there are less crates than there were before… and they were dragged away. And this base’s been abandoned since the Clone Wars so… yeah I’d be more than a little on edge right now. But they do exactly what I probably wouldn’tve… they go into the hangar and investigate. And it’s dark in there. With crashed Republic ships! Seriously that last part was kind of awesome and scary at the same time… awesome because I love seeing how the story all ties together and scary because they’ve been abandoned for like fourteen years or something. I kept thinking “Ermagosh is that Clone armor?! Oh wait that’s just a ship part…” *Shudders*. Ah but there are things much scarier than crashed gunships in this dark port. Good thing Hera has a flashlight-thing! I didn’t even know they had flashlights in the SW universe! Cool 🙂 Oh right and then Hera saw one of their missing crates… ripped open. Anyone else getting major creepo vibes here? And then out of the shadows along comes a glowy-eyed somewhat-feline-and-insectoid-but-not horrifying creature! (I forgot what their species name is, as you probably can tell) And from there on out it’s all blasters going and our girls make a dash for it. Oh and there are clearly a lot more of them in here. Oh boy. But thankfully it seems these critters have some sort of weakness: they don’t like the light, so they prefer to stay in their dark hangar. Problem, however, is that there are all these asteroids floating in the sky like clouds and when they block out the sun… yeah you know. And there happens to be a pretty big one coming their way, one that might give the creatures enough time to do our heroes in. And only nowwwww do Hera and Sabine find out that their ship’s leaked enough fuel that they’re not going anywhere. Can you say “we’re toast”?
On the other side of the galaxy, Zeb was about to eat some waffles. Well, at least that’s what they kinda look like to me. Crepes maybe? Or they could just be tacos, IDK. With some milk on the side, he’s got all the makings of a balanced breakfast/lunch. I’m sorry but I love this too much. The fact we’re seeing one of the few instances of a SW character eating something casually (like waffles), is just too great, and it’s super ironic, considering a couple of our fellow Specters might become a balanced meal right now. And then Ezra, still riding Chopper while wielding a wrench, gets thrown off the droid and onto the table, and as you can imagine, Zeb is wearing his waffles now, and now he’s about to give Ezra and Chopper the what-for. And then in comes through on the comlink a call from Hera. She’s figured out that the guys may have forgotten something when they were tuning up the Phantom. So yeah that’s yet another problem to the ever-lengthening list of problems right now. Doesn’t take Kanan long to find out himself, not through the Force, but through the lack of soundproofing in the Ghost‘s walls as Ezra and Zeb argue/freak out. Looks like they’ve got a bit of rescue mission… the waffles will have to wait.
Though they know the rest of the crew’s coming to rescue them, the girls know they don’t have a lot of time before the critters get the advantage. And that is where Sabine eyes a canister of good ‘ol-fashioned rhydonuim. Yes, you know rhydonium. Enough of that stuff can cause the biggest explosion in the entire run of TCW series! And thus our Mando has come up with a plan. A few well-placed canisters + laserfire from a distance + the incoming waves of monstery critters = major win. Will it work? We will just have to wait and see… and here I go again acting as if I’m retelling the story to someone for the first time when I’m totally not. But yeah it’s pretty awesome watching as Captain Syndulla and Mandalore The Awesome (Hah I just gave Sabine the best nickname) work together to fight the beasts (and of course, the lovely fantastic explosions). Those critters are indeed quite terrifying, but strangely appealing in some weird way I can’t fully explain. But dem boogers are pretty persistent and they just keep on coming, no matter how many get caught in the path of the exploding rhydonium. They’re like giant roaches, man! OK thankfully not really… now that might geniunely scare me. Anyway, yeah I just love watching them truly working together and in sync, as I’ve always said, if there’s one thing that makes people closer in the SW galaxy, it’s a good fight when they’re both up against a greater enemy! Their plan goes well for a while, but at some point, they run out of rhydonium… and these guys multiply faster than a droid factory can make battle droids. Hera and Sabine eventually find themselves cornered, standing on top of the Phantom with nothing but their blasters. Even Sabine can only predict this to be their downfall. But then comes light from above! Light from the Ghost! Hoorayyyy! They’re bringin’ their gunfire and their light to the party… which works for a while, until the critters figure out that artificial light’s not the same as sunlight. So it’s an all-out battle as our friends work to get on board and get the Phantom out of harm’s way. And then on top of it, Ezra decides to join the battle on the ground with the girls, which, you know, works up until his confidence gets him staring into those glowy yellow eyes of death. It’s only Sabine’s aim and quick-shooting that saves him. Ezra you owe this girl big-time. And finally it takes Hera taking back the control of the Ghost from Kanan to get our heroes safe and off-planet. Oh, and hitting the Ghost’s personal “windshield wipers” to get rid of a hitchhiking beastie. Victory for today! And d’awwww that split-second smile Hera and Kanan exchange!! X3 Sorry we weren’t talking about that. Oh, and Sabine being all “whatever” about saving Ezra’s life hehehe XD
So back on board, the boys now are ready to get the Phantom patched up the way it should be. And Hera and Sabine come to a really honest understanding. After just having survived near-death together, Hera reclarifies that she truly does trust Sabine, and she reassures her that she will get the answers someday, and that she definitely is making a difference. And so, though Sabine still doesn’t understand all of this, she proves willing to trust and have a little faith, even if it’s not easy to do sometimes. Because in five years from now, Miss Wren will be able to look back and know where exactly all of this led up to 🙂
So yay! What an episode! Truly bringin’ all the feels and all the awesome as we finally get to know more about these amazing girls who we’ve come to know and love over the past month. Until next week, remember to keep the faith and of course…